“Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!’” (Gen. 28)

Some have asked me, now that I am beginning my second year as pastor here, how I feel. Well, in a word, I feel overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed by the extraordinary commitment and hard work that so many of you put into the myriad ministries of this parish. I feel overwhelmed by the smell of roasting chilis at the markets. I feel overwhelmed by the level of need in the state of New Mexico, now ranked as the poorest of all 50 states. I feel overwhelmed by the variety of talents and abilities that we have as a parish community, and the abundant goodness you all demonstrate day by day in trying to the right thing for your families and your community. I feel overwhelmed by how much there is to learn about this state: the complexity of its cultures, the richness of its history, and the peculiarities of its politics. I feel overwhelmed by the seriousness with which this parish takes prayer, and the importance of discerning God’s will, and the enthusiasm you have for the variety of Christian faith—and other faiths. I feel overwhelmed by the violence that mars our nation, week after week, leaving in its wake some 30,000 gun deaths each year.I feel overwhelmed by the mendacity of our political leaders, and their inability (or perhaps disinterest) in calling us together rather than driving us apart. And I feel overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the fall in this land of enchantment: the brilliant September sunsets, the maximilian daisies bursting forth in gardens, the exuberance of the blooming chamisa across the desert.

Life is made up, isn’t it, of a conflicting sequence of feeling overwhelmed by both the good and the bad, such that we are caught between a sense of both the great tragedy of the human experience, but also its great triumph. And if you’re like me, feeling caught like that can threaten us with emotional and spiritual paralysis, because we’re never sure where we stand.

But there is also a third force at work, which is the grace and mercy of God, and while we feel overwhelmed by a steady stream of contradictory emotions, God’s grace is at work steadily, patiently drawing us through both the tragedies and the triumphs, even though we may be unaware of it. We are like Jacob in today’s first reading. Jacob is in one of the moments of tragedy, escaping from the conflict over his father’s inheritance that he has had with his brother Esau. Despondent, he lays down in a lonely and isolated place, with nothing but a stone for a pillow. And then … he dreams there a dream of great beauty and encouragement, as he sees angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. Awaking from his sleep, he realizes that even in this lonely place, God has not abandoned him, but that there is even here a connection between heaven and earth such that he is not truly alone, but in the company of angels.

The irony is that like Jacob, our sense of God’s presence and grace is often only retrospective. Waking from his dream, Jacob exclaims, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!” Where he thought he was in the loneliest and most desolate of places, he finds nothing other than a stairway to heaven. Similarly, in the midst of our own trials and tribulations—those times when we feel most overwhelmed by the tragic side—we often cannot detect where God is in the moment. Only later, looking back, are we able to perceive that even when we were in greatest need and doubt, it was God who sustained us through it. We find that we were surrounded by our own cloud of witnesses—like the angels arrayed here today all around the church.

This irony of our retrospective awareness of God puts me in mind of that greatest of all hymns, “Amazing Grace,” whose author, John Newton was (as you may know) a notorious slave trader. Looking back upon those dark days in his life—when he felt overwhelmed by the culpability of his trade—Newton is now able to see that even he was nevertheless surrounded by grace, though he did not know it. And it was this very grace that gradually drew him out of the trap of the evil that had corrupted him. The hymn moves from the past tense (“I once was lost”) to the present (“but now I’m found”). And then in this present state of assurance, Newton looks forward to the future with confidence and hope, aware finally of now being overwhelmed by grace rather than evil (“The Lord has promised good to me, and will my shield and portion be as long as life endures”).

In our lives too, when we look back at our darkest moments, we are often able to see only in retrospect that it was grace that saved us—and then, as in the last verse of Newton’s hymn, this realization of God’s prevenient grace and mercy overwhelms us with a sense of gratitude, of blessing, and of love that gives us hope that it is grace that will also lead us home. (“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we’d first begun”)

Today we begin our parish’s fall stewardship season, when we focus on the concrete response that each of us will make to being overwhelmed by God’s grace and mercy, even in the midst of our cares and concerns. This stewardship season is a time to pause, like Jacob in his dream, to consider where God is in our lives, though we do not know it, and then to consider how we will choose to respond.

This is, you might say, a season to write our own hymn of grace, as we take stock of how God has sustained us, and has drawn us through “many dangers, toils, and snares” to this day. It is a time to write a hymn of courage, of confidence, and of gratitude, through the tangible act we make of offering back to God a portion of our financial resources, as a sign of the even more abundant grace God has given to us.

That very act of blessing and gratitude is what we sang about in that wonderful 103rd Psalm today: in response to a Lord who is “full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness,” our life is to be lived in return by blessing God, through our own acts of gratitude and praise. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God’s holy name.”

Last night, just out of curiosity, I typed the name “Taizé” into Spotify, to see what popped up. The first song that started to play was the Taizé community singing this very psalm: “Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God’s holy name. Bless the Lord my soul, who leads me into life.” Well, if even Spotify has such an excellent theology as that, then shouldn’t we also?

Let this stewardship season be a time when you rediscover how God has blessed you, and then ponder in your soul how you will bless the Lord in return. Or in a word, let this be a time when you are overwhelmed by God’s grace and mercy, rather than the cares and worries of the day, and then consider what is the true measure of your response. Amen.

The parable Jesus told his disciples in this morning’s gospel lessonhas been mystifying readers for centuries.Is Jesus really lifting up a dishonest steward as an example for his followers?And how do the words of Jesus following the story relate to the story itself?

A friend of mine said this parable is like when you get a knot in your shoelaceand it’s pulled really tight. Getting it loose is very tedious and it takes lots of patience. Usually it takes carefully pulling out one strand at a time. So that’s what we’ll do this morning –pull out a couple of strands and see what they might mean for us today.

The story is about a man who manages the property of a wealthy land owner.The master may well be an absentee landlord,who has hired someone to manage his property for him.The manager is in charge of negotiating with the laborers who work the land,and with the merchants who move the produce to market.It’s a position which requires a highly responsible and trustworthy man.

But the rich man has concluded that his manager is not managing wisely, and tells him he’s going to fire him.The manager’s response is very interesting. He does not claim to have managed well at all. He doesn’t say, “Hey, I don’t deserve to be treated like this!” He simply acknowledges that he is in BIG trouble –“I’m not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.What am I going to do now?”

In that time, a member of a rich man’s household – such as his manager – could speak on his behalf, and it would be the same as if the man himself had spoken.While the manager still had that power,he went to his master’s debtors and reduced their debt.And we are talking about substantial amounts.A hundred jugs of olive oil is like thousands of dollars. Now, it would be very difficult for the wealthy man to recover the original amounts of the debts, so the debtors all owe favors to the former manager.When he is fired, he will have a whole list of people who owe him,and they can help him get back on his feet.

Well, now comes the part of the story that is hard to understand. The wealthy man must have been furious,but he must also have known how unpopular he would beif he reneged on his manager’s promises.Maybe he even realized how he might benefit from his new popularity.Whatever his reasons, he actually commends his former manager for acting shrewdly. Not for being dishonest, but for acting shrewdly. Even though he was dishonest,the manager was very smart in setting himself up for the future.

As Jesus finished telling this parable, his disciples must have been thinking,“Okay, Jesus, what does all this have to do with us?”

Jesus probably surprised them as much as he does us when he explained: “for I tell you, the children of the world are more shrewd in dealing with their affairsthan are the children of the light.”The children of the world are more shrewd in dealing with their affairsthan are the children of the lightWhat is that about?Most of the time Jesus says his followers should be less like everyone else – doing crazy things like giving everything away and taking up a cross and all that.Now Jesus is pointing out one way we can strive to keep up withthe “children of this world” Jesus says to be shrewd.

It reminds me of the story in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus is sending his disciples outto proclaim the good news.“I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves,” Jesus says,“so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”We are used to hearing the innocent part – we are supposed to follow the law, and treat other people with love and caring.But wise as serpents?Is that Jesus talking?

The important thing here is what we are to be shrewd and serpent-like about.We are to be wise as serpents in the way we spread the good news in the world.We are to be shrewd in our role as “children of the light” – that is, when we are shining God’s light into the dark places in the world.

Is this, in some strange way, about stewardship?God asks us to be shrewd managers of the vast resources God has placed in our care.

What will we do with the resources we have?It is a question each of us asks in our own homes as we decide how to use our income and time to reflect our values and our faith.And it is a question the Vestry and staff of St Michael’s take very seriously. How do we use the gifts we have been given to best serve our mission and show our faithfulness to God in this place?

We are called to be proactive in sharing love and doing justice, to get our own hands busy in the tasks of caring for one another and our church home, feeding the hungry, and giving shelter to the homeless.

I recently had the chance to tour the Albuquerque Opportunity Center, a program of Albuquerque Heading Home.I read the Heading Home website, and along with the sheer scope of programs they offer to help people out of homelessness, I was struck by the way they describe their mission and their work.They envision an Albuquerque where homelessness is rare, short-lived and non recurring.A phrase that is repeated on the site and printed material is: the smart way to do the right thing.The web site emphasizes that housing people is actually less expensive to the community than the costs - such as increased emergency room care and jail costs - of people remaining homeless.We all agree that we want to end homelessness – many people are willing to help – but bringing programs and corporate donors and churches and individuals together to provide effective, lasting assistance to people experiencing homelessness is a challengeThat is the challenge Heading Home has taken on – working together with many others in Albuquerque to manage our resources wisely and end chronic homelessness.

Christians, as a community and as individuals,have a unique light to shine in the darkness.The light of God’s loving care for all people.The light of peace and justice in Jesus’ name.Jesus invites us to work together, to share our resources and bring all of our wisdom and intelligence to bear, in how we spread that light to make a difference in the world.

I will close with the collect for the right use of God’s gifts:Let us pray,Almighty God, whose loving hand has given us all that we possess: Grant us grace that we may honor you with all we are and all we have, and, remembering the account which we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your bounty through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our Gospel story today begins where many stories begin – with the scribes and Pharisees – the good religious folks of Jesus’ time – grumbling.They know there is something special about Jesus – something important going on here.But they just can’t figure him out!One minute he is clearly using the power of God to heal, and his teaching is spiritual and pure –but then he goes and does something like break the Sabbath laws, or eats with tax collectors – enemies of the Jews! – and people who are morally unpure.

Jesus hears their grumbling – why does he keep inviting Those People? –and in response, he tells three stories.Two are the stories we heard in today’s Gospel, and the third is the story of the Prodigal Son.He tells of a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in the wilderness, to go after one who is lost.And of a woman who has lost one coin, and spends hours searching and sweeping out her house to find it.And both stories end in the same place – with celebration.Both the shepherd and the woman, upon finding what was lost, say to their friends and neighbors, “Rejoice with me!”And if you remember, the Prodigal Son story also ends with a party – the father’s celebration at the return of his son.

The Pharisees and scribes are grumbling – but Jesus is celebrating!Each time he sits down with those who are outcast, those who have been lost – it’s a party!And what’s more, the hosts of heaven are celebrating with him.

Most of us feel lost sometimes, and when we are in those times, these stories offer comfort and hope.These stories tell us that God will never give up on us – that no matter how far we wander, God will seek us out and welcome us home.Even when we feel most alone and forsaken, those times we are most aware of being lost –it is precisely at those moments that the Good Shepherd is most diligently coming after us.How many of us here today can look back at times of darkness, when we felt we’d lost our way entirely, and recognize that Jesus was there with us all along –holding our hand, whispering in our ear, urging us to come home?

But do you remember the place in Hebrews that says, “Scripture is a two-edged sword”?Parables tend to have sharp edges, and I hear an edge at work in these stories.

So who is lost now?The last story, of the son who is welcomed home with open arms, gives a clue.Do you remember the older brother, who complains and cannot accept his father’s generosity to the younger son?The father assures him that it is his party, too.“You have always been with me,” the father says. “All I have is yours.”But the story ends without telling us what becomes of that brother.Does he join the party - welcome his brother home and live in harmony?Or does he stay at the sidelines, pouting and nursing his own self-righteousness?

Because most of us in this room could easily be cast as the Pharisees and scribes, rather than as outcasts and sinners.We are the church insiders.We love our traditional worship, our liturgy and hymns, our vestments and art and flowers.All those things are good and beautiful, because they assist us in coming into God’s presence and worshiping God with our senses.But Jesus speaks clearly to us in this – do not ever let attachment to traditions keep you from the real party.The real party is the one going one at the margins, when outcasts and sinners –the homeless, the sex workers, the prisoners and ex-cons, the beggars, the addicts, the mentally ill – are found and welcomed home.

What we do here is gather for a feast – a feast that feeds us and prepares us for our true work, which is to go out and live God’s message of love – even among people who don’t act like us, who make us uncomfortable, who don’t know or care about our rituals and our prayers.

Today is September 11.It has been fifteen years since the attack that forever changed the world we live in.The other day I heard a radio interview with Valarie Kaur, director of the documentary film “Divided We Fall: America in the Aftermath.”Valarie was a 20-yr-old college student, an American of Indian descent and the Sikh faith, on September 11, 2001.She talked about her sense of disorientation on that day, as the screens were filled with pictures of a turbaned, bearded man who had become the #1 enemy of the United States. He looked like members of her family.A few weeks later, one of Valarie’s uncles was shot and killed in front of his store, where he was preparing to plant flowers.He was killed because he had dark skin and wore a turban.

Valarie knew she had to do something, so she and her cousin traveled across the country with a video camera, documenting such instances of violence against people of Muslim and Sikh faith.What she saw was chilling – she spoke of sometimes arriving at a scene of violence even before police, when the blood had not yet dried.

But even more chilling were Valarie’s next words.She said she expected her film would cover just a brief moment in time – an aberrant escalation in hate and violence that would soon die down. Instead, here we are 15 years later, and the hate and violence continue.We are still at war.People of middle-eastern descent, people identifiable as Muslim or Sikh, still face discrimination and violence – as do black people, Latino people, immigrants – anyone the white majority doesn’t consider “one of us.”

Valarie Kaur has become an activist for peace and justice, founding an interfaith movement called Groundswell.You can find out more about Valarie and her Revolutionary Love Project on her website: valariekaur.org.

So how do we, as followers of Jesus, hear Valarie’s story?How do we remember September 11, and all that has come after, and re-commit ourselves to peace and justice, to revolutionary love as taught us by Jesus?

We begin in prayer – but we must also do more than pray.I remember a prayer I first heard as a young woman in church, “Lord, grant us the will to do that for which we pray.”As we pray this morning for peace and justice and inclusion, we must also live our lives in such a way that we create peace and justice and inclusion.

To help in this, we can remember the other stories of September 11 – the aftermath that includes ordinary heroes and kindness, compassion, and community.

On September 11, 2001, Welles Crowther went to work like every other day to his job as an equities trader in the World Trade Center. After the second tower was hit, the one he was in, Welles led everyone he could find down the steps to safety, and then he went back for more. And after leading more people to safety, he went back again, and again, and again, until the tower collapsed. On that day, this talented, athletic, good natured, but in so many ways ordinary person did an extraordinary thing, giving his life to make sure others could live.

This morning, storyteller Regina Ress, who was in New York City at the time of the attacks, will share other such stories of courage and compassion in the wake of September 11.Perhaps these stories and others like them can encourage us, in our ordinary lives as followers of Christ, so show extraordinary love.

When Jesus tells parables, he is usually – if not always – talking about the Kingdom of God - that time and place, when God’s will for humanity will be fully realized.What today’s parables tells us is that the Kingdom of God is a celebration.It’s a party, but it’s not our party – it’s God’s.And the Kingdom of God does not recognize insiders and outsiders.

We don’t get to make the invitations to this party.Everyone is invited.We just get to join the celebration – feasting and singing and dancing with all the wrong people.

“I am sending Onesimus back to you … that you might have him no longer as a slave but more than a slave—a beloved brother.” (Philemon)

It being Labor Day weekend, I propose that we spend a few minutes this morning thinking about work, and our relationship to it.

The theme is suggested not just by the holiday calendar, but also by the epistle lesson, drawn from Paul’s letter to Philemon. Paul is imprisoned, and while in prison he has befriended a run-away slave named Onesimus. Now it turns out that Onesimus belongs to a man named Philemon, a leader of a house church probably in Colassae, with whom Paul is well acquainted.

The purpose of Paul’s letter seems to be two-fold. In the first instance, he implores Philemon to receive Onesimus back without punishment—already a bold request given that in the ancient world a slave could be punished however his master deemed fit.

But more than that, Paul also makes the even bolder move of asking Philemon to receive Onesimus back as a brother, because of their common bond in Christ. Now this really is a radical upset of the social relations of the time, because slaves were essentially considered to be subhuman. And here is Paul encouraging not only forgiveness and reconciliation, but recognition of Onesimus’ full humanity. He doesn’t go quite so far as to suggest that Philemon should grant Onesimus his freedom, but he does advocate that their working relations need to be founded on a sense of mutual respect and fraternity.

That, at least, is one interpretation of the letter. There are others, but I like this one, so that’s the direction we’re going to take, especially because it sets up the real theme that I want to talk about: work, career, and vocation.

If Paul’s letter is primarily about the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus, and therefore the relationship that each of them has to the work of the household in which they each dwell, it raises for us a similar question: what is our relationship to the work that we do?

Such a question puts me in mind of the classic concept of the homo faber, that is, the idea that as human beings, we create the world which we inhabit through the work of our own hands. Theologically speaking, it extends on the notion of deus faber, the creative God, by suggesting that creation is not complete in and of itself, but requires the imaginative and productive engagement of the human community to bring it to its fulfillment.

Now, in a primitive society where human beings live an essentially subsistence lifestyle, such a portrait is pretty easy to see. But what about in the market economy of global mass cultural which we inhabit? It can be much harder to see the connection between the work we do and any creative process that claims to be contributing to the formation or fulfillment of the world.

One bridge across that gap is to reclaim a distinction between the idea of work as a career, and work as a vocation. David Brooks recently wrote a piece in the New York Times on exactly this theme,[1] but there have been others before him: the literary critic Edward Said in his magisterial book on the creative process, called Beginnings: Method and Intent.[2] And behind that work was the Italian Enlightenment political philosopher, Giambattista Vico. Distinguishing between career and vocation, in other words, a long tradition of thought, but one worth revisiting.

The substance of the distinction is this: the idea of career comes from the Latin word carraria, which means a track, a well-beaten path, an established road. It’s a course of life that has a pretty well defined trajectory: certain credentials are required to enter into it, certain hurdles have to be crossed, and certain expectations of advancement are assumed. Entering upon a career is a bit like turning into the on-ramp of a freeway: your direction is pretty well set for you from then on, and you can stay on the established road indefinitely, unless you choose for some reason to exit.

Vocation, on the other hand, comes from the word vocare, which is a verb meaning to call, to be summoned, to hear and to respond. To think of one’s work as a vocation is to have a sense of responding to a purpose that is larger than oneself, and of entering onto a terrain where the road is not so clearly marked or established. Vocation requires imagination, passion, conviction, and determination to persevere even when the way seems obscure and uncharted. It’s more like driving the backroads, with no GPS system in hand: you’re not sure where the road may lead.

As Brooks summarizes the difference between the two, “A career is something you choose; a vocation is something you are called to.”

And there is an important corollary to this distinction as well. Because a careerist mindset focuses on a specific goal, it causes us to focus on the self as we move towards it: How can I win the most elections? How can I manoeuver to earn the highest salary? How do I get tenure? Whereas for someone with a vocational mindset, the emphasis is on the common good: How can I contribute to making the world a better place? What do I uniquely have to offer?

Now, a danger is that we tend to think that certain occupations are inherently careerist (politicians, for example), while others are vocational (preachers, for example). But the really important point is that any occupation can be inhabited by someone with either set of motives. There are on one hand plenty of politicians who are motivated by a vocational sense of public service; and on the other hand there are also plenty of preachers who are preoccupied with careerist advancement in the church.

But as people of faith, we should be drawn back to the underlying conviction that each of us, being created by God, is also called into the vocation of continuing that creative task by the way in which we live our lives—or more specifically, by the way in which we approach our work. Reciting the words of the creed (as we do each Sunday here in church), where we are reminded that God is our creator, could be thought of as a regular reminder of our call—our vocation—to play our part in creation’s completion.

So any labor can be done with a sense of vocational purpose, when it is done with a sense of responding to this divine call to serve God by serving others. Whatever work you do—teacher, engineer, homemaker, retiree, carpenter, gardener, lawyer, sanitation worker, or whatever—has this potential.

Oscar Romero, former Archbishop of San Salvador, played a big role in witnessing for peace during that country’s civil war through the weekly radio broadcasts of his sermon at mass in the cathedral. In one, he reached out to all those who labor in whatever kind of job, encouraging them to see their work in these vocational, and even priestly, terms:

How beautiful will be the day [he said] when all the baptized understand that their work, their job, is a priestly work--that just as I celebrate Mass at this altar, so each carpenter celebrates Mass at his work-bench, and that each metal-worker, each professional, each doctor with the scalpel, the market woman at her stand, is performing a priestly office! [He continued], I know many cabdrivers are listening to this message there in their cabs ... You are a priest at the wheel, my friends, if you work with honesty, consecrating that taxi of yours to God--bearing a message of peace and love to the passengers who ride in your cab. (20 Nov. 1977)

Reminding us of the inescapability and inevitability of a true vocation, David Brooks puts it in the form of a double negative: a vocation is something that you can’t … not … do. You can’t be you, without it. So on this Labor Day weekend, I encourage you to ask yourself, what is it that you feel compelled to do, in order to be distinctly you? What work is it that calls you out of and beyond the limitations of who you are now, encouraging you to be more, to do more, and love more than you thought possible? When you have answered that question, there you will find your true vocation. Amen.